


losing sleep on weekend's eve

by howobnoctis



Category: Original Work
Genre: LGBTQ Themes, Poetry, Sexuality, Slam Poetry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-03
Updated: 2019-11-03
Packaged: 2021-01-16 11:53:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21270602
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/howobnoctis/pseuds/howobnoctis
Summary: (these god damn cishets and men.i forgot i’m gay again.)





	losing sleep on weekend's eve

i.  
are there really ever words  
for craving as carnal as urge?

if only  
the slope of a hip, the shift of a smirk,  
jutting jawline and jaunty gait  
gave me no cause to hesitate;  
but in my confusion i wait,  
gripped with delusions that fate  
condemns me to men as my mate

and then  
i turn heel in the dirt, run for the hills and desert  
before he can take off his shirt,

suddenly sure  
that i’m no girl to a boy;

instead  
of presents and pop songs and straight things like marriage,  
i want leather and lesbians and queer things like wreckage

damn those briefs, boy,  
and how i want to play you like a toy  
while my heart smirks superior  
waiting for a woman to render me inferior

no man can crack the Catholic in me  
when my body burns for queer ecstasy

are there ever really words  
for craving as carnal as urge?

_(these god damn cishets and men._  
_ i forgot i’m gay again.)_

ii.  
i lied.

i lied to try to let that side of me die, this history i cannot exorcise:

the straight and narrow, the heart with an arrow  
the long-haired woman whose husband’s named Herman  
who has five kids  
and laughs when he forgets to close the toilet lid.

what about

the wild-willed lady who marries the butch babe Brady  
who goes to prison thrice  
fighting for Flint’s black lives and Russian gay rights?

but the allure of the Church, its profession of straights,  
my sixth-grade praise of the heterosexual fate,  
the mark on a magazine where my lacquered lips kissed  
the boy on the head whom I dreamt of in bed –  
the same boy I saw some six years later:  
i was a senior, and he was a waiter;  
i wondered in awe how time turned me gayer.

was it something i missed? did i need a boy’s kiss?  
would i have caught the friend crush if i had known a man’s touch?  
_no_ – for my heart never knew a rush  
like the hope for her hand, her touch –

why memories are tragic:  
they make me regret  
not being a het  
yet cannot relent  
what I can’t forget:  
– my soul needs me Sapphic.

iii.

i always thought love would remain  
but found that, in time, it fades;  
i thought i had watched it wither away  
but then it came back,  
riding memory on piggyback

_(it’s five fifty-three, why am i not asleep?)_

**Author's Note:**

> written 11 nov 2017


End file.
